Chapter 9 #2
Torvald produced ale. Marta sent food from the kitchen in quantities that suggested she'd been planning this for days. Thor escaped Claricia twice and was retrieved both times by Erik with the weary efficiency of a man who had stopped being surprised by it.
"So," Erik said, when they'd been there long enough for the ale to have done its work. He was looking at Ivar with the expression he wore when he was about to say something he'd been saving. "She's nae what I expected."
"What did ye expect?" Ivar said.
"I dinnae ken. Someone more… I dinnae ken what tae call it." Erik made a gesture.
"Fragile?" Magnus said, without looking up from his cup.
"I wasnae goin' tae say fragile."
"Ye were absolutely goin' tae say fragile," Ragnar said.
Erik pointed at him. "Ye're supposed tae be the quiet one."
"I'm accurate," Ragnar said. "Nay one said I have tae be quiet."
Ivar looked across the hall to where Matilda was sitting with the women.
She had Thor in her lap, which appeared to have happened without anyone planning it. She was listening to something Claricia was saying with the focused attention she gave things she was genuinely interested in.
As he watched, she said something back that made Claricia laugh and Isolda press her lips together in the way that meant she was fighting the same thing.
"She held up well," Torvald said, from his end of the group. "On the road. The crossin'. All of it."
"Aye," Ivar said.
"MacDougall's goin' tae be a problem," Erik said, the humor dropping out of his voice.
"I ken."
"Ye'll need men."
"I have men."
"More men." Erik looked at him steadily. "Say the word and I’ll send all the men I can spare."
Ivar looked at him. At all of them, Erik with his directness, Magnus with his quiet and his sleeping daughter, Ragnar with his stillness.
Men he'd known since they were young and stupid and considerably less careful with their lives. Men who had sailed to his island within a day of being asked, no questions, no conditions.
"Aye," he said. "I'll say the word if I need it."
"Before ye need it," Magnus said.
"Before I need it," he agreed.
Erik raised his cup. "tae the last of us finally gettin' it done."
"Ye make it sound like a punishment," Ivar said.
"Isnae it?" Erik said, and looked across the hall at Claricia, who was laughing at something, and his face did the thing it always did when he looked at her.
"Nae tae sound like her, but, ask me in a month," Ivar said. He saw her laugh at something Claricia said. It was a real, bright sound that cut through the low murmur of the hall. It made his chest tighten.
"I'll ask ye in a week," Erik said. "The way ye are looking at her even right now, it'll be settled well before a month."
"Nobody asked ye."
"Nobody has tae." He was grinning again. "She told Thorsten dinnae and he listened. That child has never listened tae anythin' in his life. She's goin' tae run this island inside of a fortnight."
"She's goin' tae run it," Ivar said, "inside of a week."
The words came out before he'd decided to say them.
Erik looked at him with the expression of a man who had just received the information he'd been fishing for and was being gracious enough not to make a production of it.
He said nothing. He drank his ale.
Torvald was looking at the ceiling.
Ragnar had found something interesting in his cup.
"Shut up," Ivar said, to all of them.
The King’s men arrived during the meal.
Four of them, travel-stained and deliberate, coming through the hall doors with the walk of people who knew they were interrupting and had decided that was acceptable.
The hall shifted around them, the comfortable noise dropping, conversations pausing and then resuming at a different register.
The one in front was lean and sharp-featured with the kind of eyes that catalogued everything they looked at.
He found the head of the table, found Ivar, and moved toward it.
"Laird Gunnarsson." He didn't sit until Ivar nodded at the bench, and then he sat with the efficiency of a man who had somewhere to be after this. "I'm Henry. The King's envoy. We've been sent to oversee the union and confirm it's completed under the terms of the Pact."
"I ken why ye're here," Ivar said.
"Then ye ken the weddin’ proceeds tomorrow." Henry looked down the table, at the lairds and their wives, at Matilda sitting between Claricia and Isolda with her hands in her lap and her face composed. "Under royal supervision."
"Tomorrow?" Ivar said.
"Aye. The King willnae accept further delay given the MacDougall situation." Henry looked back at him. "The union needs tae be witnessed and confirmed. Quickly and without complication."
The table was very quiet.
Ivar looked down the table at Matilda. She was sitting perfectly still, her hands clasped in her lap. Her face was a mask of Highland composure, but her eyes were wide and fixed on him.
He saw the flicker of panic and he stood, his chair scraping loudly against the stone.
He walked the length of the table until he was standing beside her.
He didn't speak; he simply reached down and took her hand in his, his fingers interlocking with hers in a grip that was as much a promise as a command.
"It'll be witnessed," Ivar said. "Without complication."
Henry held his gaze for a moment, the look of a man assessing whether he was being told what he wanted to hear or what was actually true. He appeared to decide, provisionally, on the latter.
"Good." He reached for the ale someone had placed in front of him. "Then we'll be done here quickly and the Pact can be closed."
Ivar held her gaze for a moment. Just long enough to mean something.
She looked back at him with those watchful hazel eyes and said nothing and gave nothing away.
The hall resumed around them, but suddenly, tomorrow became real.